When I started teaching, I didn't really know that executive functioning (EF) was "a thing". I'm kinda old, so perhaps it wasn't a subject area that was covered when I was a pre-service teacher a hundred years ago. But, because I was teaching at a school for students with specific learning disabilities (SLD), it didn't take me long to see that for many students EF is not only "a thing", but having deficient EF skills can present HUGE learning barriers. According to Understood.org's infographic, A Day in the Life of Child with Executive Functioning Issues, "executive functions work together to help the brain organize and act on information." This can include things like organization, time management, working memory, attention, focus, staying on task, regulating emotions, and self-control. For more information on EF, check out the video Executive Functions: Why They Are Skills for a Lifetime.
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In my classroom, I watched, every day, as students with ADHD, Dyslexia, Auditory Processing Disorder, and a number of other learning challenges struggled with organization, memory and self-regulation. I quickly began to see how a student without appropriate executive functioning skills could be at a marked disadvantage in a typical classroom setting. Luckily, the school itself championed Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and explicitly taught and reinforced the development of EF skills in every class. While I'm no longer in a K-12 classroom, I am still in the field of education: higher education. And, I began to wonder if EF played as large a role in student success as I had witnessed in the K-12 world. Unfortunately, EF is a difficult thing to assess, as it is embedded in every class, extracurricular, and social activity a student experiences. It's difficult to separate and evaluate the EF skills ONLY. I simply didn't have access to this kind of data. I did, however, have access to archived mid-semester feedback (MSF) data conducted by the university's teaching and learning center, along with MSF data collected during the current school year. Our teaching and learning center conducts mid-semester feedback evaluations, when requested by individual instructors, for the university's instructional faculty. It is a very simple process:
The completed index cards look something like this: I wanted to see what students were recommending, because this would tell us what they are asking for help with in their classes. So, I collected and compiled all data from last year's MSF evaluations to see if any of the recommendations were associated with EF. Then, I got excited by the data, and decided to code all student responses according to the three UDL principles. I started by color coding each recommendation in Green for Engagement, Purple for Representation, and Blue for Action & Expression. Now that I was on a roll, I decided to break down each recommendation by UDL guideline, so I coded them according to the bullet points below. For more information on the UDL guidelines, visit the new 2018 CAST UDL Guidelines page. For Engagement:
Once I had the data all sorted, I removed any recommendations that less than 1/2 of the class agreed on, and I was left with 164 separate recommendations. Here's what the final data looked like:
I couldn't believe it! It turns out that of all the recommendations students made for ways to help them learn, the one thing they were asking for the most was help with executive functioning!
While I was compiling these data, our office was also asked to provide MSF evaluations for every instructor in the university's new Honors College. I was curious to see if there was any difference between the MSF data from all university courses and the MSF data from the Honors College. Well, here's what I came up with!
I was fascinated by the differences I found in MSF recommendations between those from the general university courses and those from the Honors College. Could they really be that different? What students from the general university courses seemed to want help with was executive functioning, but what the Honors College students wanted help with was engagement, specifically sustaining effort & persistence and recruiting interest.
Here is a chart of the coded data side by side. The general university course recommendations are on the top, and the Honors College course recommendations are highlighted by a gray box on the bottom. So, according to these data, students in the Honors College are doing pretty well with EF, but they really need to see the relevance in and be challenged by their courses. Whereas, in the general university courses, students need the most help with EF, but they also need help with recruiting interest. As our office continues to conduct MSF data, I will continue analyzing the information to look for trends in what students are indicating they need help with, and we plan to modify our professional development, training and workshop offerings based on these data. So, it turns out that EF is a major area of need for many higher ed. students, but for some groups the biggest area of need is seeing connections between their school work and their goals and interests. This information also leaves me with many new questions:
What other questions do you have regarding the student voice and course evaluations/recommendations? Leave me a comment!
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AuthorJennifer Pusateri is a Universal Design Consultant at the University of Kentucky's Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT). Archives
January 2019
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